12 Best Sights in Western Paris, Paris

When Parisians want to experience the great outdoors without going too far from home, they head to the Bois de Boulogne. Once a royal hunting ground, the Bois is like a vast tamed forest where romantic lakes and wooded paths are complemented by formal gardens and family-friendly amusements. On nice days, it’s filled with cyclists, rowers, rollerbladers, and joggers. Art lovers also flock here thanks to the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a stunning exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art.

The Parc de Bagatelle is a floral garden with irises, roses, tulips, water lilies, and roaming peacocks, while the Pré Catelan contains one of Paris's largest trees: a copper beech more than 200 years old. Romantic Le Pré Catelan restaurant (three Michelin stars), a Belle Époque classic with an elegant terrace, still draws diners and wedding parties. The Jardin Shakespeare inside the Pré Catelan has a sampling of the flowers, herbs, and trees mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, and it becomes an open-air theater for the Bard's works in spring and summer. The Jardin d'Acclimatation is an amusement park that attracts hordes of preschoolers on summer Sundays. Boats or bikes can be rented for a few euros at Lac Inférieur. You can row or take a quick "ferry" to the island restaurant, Le Chalet des Îles. Two popular horse-racing tracks are also in the park: the Hippodrome de Longchamp and the Hippodrome d'Auteuil. Fans of the French Open can visit its home base, Stade Roland-Garros.

The main entrance to the Bois is off Avenue Foch near the Porte Dauphine métro stop on Line 2; it is best for accessing the Pré Catelan and Jardin Shakespeare, both off Route de la Grande-Cascade by the lake. For the Jardin d'Acclimatation and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, off Boulevard des Sablons, take Line 1 to Les Sablons or Porte Maillot, where you can walk or ride the Petit Train to the amusement park, which is next door to the foundation. The foundation also offers a €2 return-trip shuttle from Place de l'Étoile. The Parc de Bagatelle, off Route de Sèvres-à-Neuilly, can be accessed from either Porte Dauphine or Porte Maillot, though it's a bit of a hike. You'll want to leave the park by dusk, as the Bois—potentially dangerous after dark—turns into a distinctly “adult” playground.

Maison La Roche is a must-see for architecture and design lovers. Built as a residence in 1923, it’s a stellar example of Swiss architect Le Corbusier's innovative construction techniques based on geometric forms, recherché color schemes, and a visionary use of iron and concrete. The sloping ramp that replaces the traditional staircase is one of the most eye-catching features. Hour-long English tours are available (four-person minimum) by advance booking.

Rising up out of the Bois de Boulogne like a magnificent ship sporting billowing crystal sails, Frank Gehry’s contemporary-art museum and cultural center is the most captivating addition to the Parisian skyline since the unveiling of the Centre Pompidou in 1977. Commissioned by Bernard Arnault (chairman and CEO of luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH), the museum, which opened in 2014, houses Arnault’s substantial private collection, including pieces by Pierre Huyghe, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Schütte, Ellsworth Kelly, Bertrand Lavier, Taryn Simon, Sarah Morris, and Christian Boltanski, among others. La Fondation Louis Vuitton also hosts extensive temporary exhibitions, like the mesmerizing light installations of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Le Frank, the pricey on-site restaurant overseen by Michelin-starred chef Jean-Louis Nomicos, is noted for its sophisticated mix of French and international cuisine. The museum is a 12-minute walk from Les Sablons métro on Line 1; alternatively, you can catch the Fondation shuttle (€2 for a return ticket), which leaves every 10–15 minutes from Avenue de Friedland at Place de l’Étoile.

This underrated museum has the largest collection of Monet's work anywhere. More than 100 pieces, donated by his son Michel, occupy a specially built basement gallery in an elegant 19th-century mansion, which was once the hunting lodge of the duke de Valmy. You can find such works as the Cathédrale de Rouen series (1892–96) and Impression: Soleil Levant (Impression: Sunrise), 1872, the painting that helped give the Impressionist movement its name. Other exhibits include letters exchanged by Impressionist painters Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Upstairs, the mansion still feels like a graciously decorated residence. Empire furnishings fill the salons overlooking the Jardin du Ranelagh on one side and the private yard on the other. There's also a captivating room of illuminated medieval manuscripts. To best understand the collection's context, pick up an English-language audio guide (€4) on your way in.

It's a shame you can't go inside this house, which is considered the city's first Art Nouveau structure. Dreamed up in 1898 by Hector Guimard, the wild combination of materials and the grimacing grillwork led neighbors to call it Castle Dérangé (Deranged). Yet the project catapulted the 27-year-old Guimard into the public eye, leading to his famous métro commission. After ogling the sea-inspired front entrance, go partway down the alley to admire the inventive treatment of the traditional Parisian courtyard, complete with a melting water fountain. A few blocks up the road at No. 60 is the Hotel Mezzara, designed by Guimard in 1911 for textile designer Paul Mezzara. You can trace Guimard's evolution by walking to the subtler Agar complex at the end of the block. Tucked beside the stone entrance at the corner of Rue Jean de la Fontaine and Rue Gros is a tiny café-bar with an Art Nouveau glass front and furnishings.

First conceived in 1958, this Modernist suburb just west of Paris was inspired by Le Corbusier's dream of tall buildings, pedestrian walkways, and sunken vehicle circulation. Built as an experiment to keep high-rises out of the historic downtown, the Parisian business hub has survived economic uncertainty to become the city's prime financial district. Today, 20,000 people live in the suburb, but 180,000 people work here and many more come to shop in its enormous mall. Arriving via métro Line 1, you'll get a view of the Seine, then emerge at a pedestrian plaza studded with some great public art, including César's giant thumb, Joan Miró's colorful figures, and one of Calder's great red "stabiles." The Grande Arche de La Défense dominates the area. It was designed as a controversial closure to the historic axis of Paris (an imaginary line that runs through the Arc de Triomphe, the Arc du Carrousel, and the Louvre Pyramide). Glass-bubble elevators in a metal-frame tower whisk you a heart-jolting 360 feet to the viewing platform.

The modest home of the great French 19th-century writer Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) contains exhibits charting his tempestuous yet prolific career. Balzac penned nearly 100 novels and stories known collectively as The Human Comedy, many of them set in Paris. You can still feel his presence in his study and pay homage to his favorite coffeepot—his working hours were fueled by a tremendous consumption of the "black ink." He would escape his creditors by exiting the flat through a secret passage that led down to what is now the Musée du Vin.

Headquarters to France's state broadcasting company, this imposing, circular, 1963 building is more than 500 yards in circumference. It's said to have more floor space than any other building in the country and features a 200-foot tower that overlooks the Seine. Radio France sponsors 100-plus concerts a year, including performances by its own Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Orchestre National de France. Though the concerts take place at venues throughout the city, a great number are held here, and they're generally either free or inexpensive. French-only building tours are offered on various days at various times. Check the website for current information.

Oenophiles with some spare time will enjoy this quirky museum housed in a 15th-century abbey, a reminder of Passy's roots as a pastoral village. Though hardly exhaustive and geared to beginners, the small collection contains old wine bottles, glassware, and ancient wine-related pottery excavated in Paris. Wine-making paraphernalia shares the grotto-like space with hokey figures—including Napoléon appraising a glass of Burgundy—retired from the city's wax museum. But you can partake in a thoroughly nonhokey wine tasting, or bring home one of the 200-plus bottles for sale in the tiny gift shop. Check online for a calendar of tastings and classes offered in English. You can book ahead for a casual lunch, too (restaurant open Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 3 pm, reservations required).

Visiting graveyards in Paris can become addictive. The Passy Cemetery dates from 1821 and sits in the shadows of Trocadéro. Here you'll find the tombstones of famous aristocrats and artists, such as composer Claude Debussy and Impressionist painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot.

Visitors come here to snap pictures of the queen of subway entrances—one of the city's two remaining Art Nouveau canopied originals designed by Hector Guimard (the other is at the Abbesses stop on Line 12). A flamboyant scalloped "crown" of patina-painted panels and runaway metal struts adorns this whimsical 1900 creation. Porte Dauphine is the terminus of Line 2. The entrance is on the Bois de Boulogne side of Avenue Foch, so take the Boulevard de l'Amiral Bruix exit.

This narrow shopping street escaped Haussmann's urban renovations and still retains the country feel of old Auteuil, a sedate bourgeois enclave. Molière once lived on the site of No. 2, and Racine was on nearby Rue du Buis. The pair met up to clink glasses and exchange drama notes at the Mouton Blanc Inn, now a traditional brasserie, at No. 40. Numbers 19–25 and 29 are an interesting combination of 17th- and 18th-century buildings. At the foot of the street, the scaly dome of the Église Notre-Dame d'Auteuil (built in the 1880s) is an unmistakable small-time cousin of Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre. Rue d'Auteuil is at its liveliest on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, when a much-loved street market crams onto Place Jean-Lorraine.